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Merry Christmas Hangover

We spent Christmas Eve in our own home, but we invited Jen’s parents and two siblings still living at home over. We enjoyed a good dinner, games, and the “opening of one present” tradition. That present is always new pajamas for the kids. The kids were very excited to see the NORAD Santa Tracker on the web so they could watch Santa’s progress.

Jen and I both woke up before the kids on Christmas morning and had already eaten a bowl of cereal before any of the kids decided to get out of bed. It was 8am before we opened any presents. I’m glad the kids are at this age — just old enough to get very excited about the prospect of Santa, but just young enough that they won’t wake up at 5am clamoring to get out of bed. We made them stop on the stairs before seeing the tree. They were pretty excited.

This is the third year in a row Jen and I have had a budget (for each other) of $30 or less. Three years ago, we decided to do a $1 gift for each other because we’d recently been to Hawaii and had decided to forgo all gifts to each other that year (birthdays, anniversary, Christmas, etc.). Last year, we spent about $30 on each other and this year we decided to spend only $20. I really enjoy this because we find it a lot more fun to spend more money on our kids and others — such as my siblings.

We spent the afternoon at my parents’ house in Elk Ridge. It took us nearly 2 hours to travel the 63 miles due to a pretty crazy storm that hit the Salt Lake Valley and northern Utah County. My folks, who live a thousand feet higher than we do, didn’t get anything and even got rain later in the day. Regardless, it was a nervous drive out of Salt Lake Valley.

My Dad celebrates his 61st birthday today which has always been anti-climatic, as you can imagine. Happy Birthday, Dad!

I am working two days next week, but that’s it. It’s nice being home from work on a day other than Saturday or Sunday.

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4 thoughts on “Merry Christmas Hangover”

We love you guys so much! I couldn’t believe that you were willing to make the trek all the way up here in the snow to bring that dishwasher. It could have waited for a few more days – I mean, I’ve been without one for a couple of years now. I was worried about you both on the way up and the way back!I’m always happy to have you up here and to see the kids. You wouldn’t have been able to make it up here today. The storm moved in and wow what a storm! We just talked to a guy from IHC that lives in Woodland Hills. They had a foot of snow before the storm last night. They got two feet of snow last night!! Providence must have been with us yesterday. I’m happy you got back home safely.

Happy birthday to your dad! And what a nice christmas to spend it with family. We have the one present on Christmas Eve tradition–PJ’s. Laura loved hers. And like you two, Gary and I spend hardly anything on each other as we’re always blessed with lots of love and gifts from the kids. Glad you got to spend time at home Jess!

I hope you had a great Christmas! I don’t know how, but I convinced the kids, with actually quite little persuasion, that 8:30 would be a good time to open presents Christmas morning. They just said, OK! Your girls look great in their new jammies!